Police vs Protesters (of all sorts)

I've been watching with dismay as peaceful protesters in a large number of our cities across the nation have been pepper sprayed, beaten with batons, shot with tear gas cannisters, knocked down with flash-bang grenades, sprayed with tear gas, shot with rubber bullets, had sound cannons used on them, run over with motor bikes, pushed, kicked, punched, and arrested for walking on public sidewalks, walking in public streets, camping in public parks, being customers of banks, and just generally exercising their rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In addition, they have had their property confiscated and in violation of laws on the books everywhere it has been thrown into garbage trucks, run over with bulldozers, burned, poured water on, deliberately destroyed, or conveniently "lost". These possesions include the usual tents, sleeping gear, clothing and other personal items, but in the larger encampments also include medical supplies and expensive medical equipment, cooking equipment and food with which the Occupy groups are feeding not only themselves but lots of homeless and other food-needy people as well. And at the NYC Occupy, a library of over 5,000 books was apparently destroyed as well.

Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, California revealed that the massive evictions with all the police brutality were a coordinated effort among many mayors. There were also rumors that there may have been assistance from the Department of Homeland Security as well, although that has not been confirmed.

And so, the question is....what are all these mayors and others so afraid of?

This comment was posted on a story on the excellent blog Crooks and Liars

Eric.Arthur.Blair — 11/24/11 9:01am
A friend of mine told me that he got an e-mail with pictures of people camping out at malls and Best Buys and Wal-Marts and Targets waiting for Black Friday.

What a country! People who camp out on private property to profane a supposedly sacred holiday with naked acquisitiveness, greed and commercialism are not only tolerated, but applauded, while those who camp out in public spaces to protest injustice are beaten, sprayed with chemical weapons and arrested.

Point well taken, and given the events of Black Friday where a shopper resorted to using pepper spray on other shoppers in order to gain access to some desired item, even more appropriate than usual.

But I'd like to go a little farther back - to last year. Remember the dawn of the Tea Party? Where the "protesters" would show up in ridiculous costumes complete with tea bags decorating their hats and shirts, and either loudly claiming to or in some places openly carrying guns? These same protesters making loud threats against the President, members of Congress and Justices of the Supreme Court? These same protesters telling us that if they didn't get their way at the ballot box they would get their way by using 'Second Amendment remedies'? A congressional candidate's assistant (he's now in Congress!) who was literally asking people to take up arms and form an insurrection against the government?

And now I ask you, where were the police in riot gear? Where was the pepper spray? All the arrests? The rubber bullets, the tear gas, the beatings, the confiscations, the massed men in blue?

Yes, they were no where to be seen. All that anti-government stuff from the Tea Parties was ignored by law enforcement. Maybe because the Tea Parties were not really a grass-roots uprising but a bought and paid for operation of the Koch brothers, and all law enforcement and city mayors etc knew it all along.

And that is what really scares them about Occupy. It is not funded by the Kochs or anyone else. History shows us over and over again, that when the income disparity gets to great between the rich and everyone else, when the powerful become too much so and the powerless come to feel their powerlessness too much so, there comes a tipping point. And the powerless and poor decide to rise up. At first it is just a few, and they are individuals. But they begin to gather together. And the groups become larger. Soon they become powerful. And when that happens, the tables get turned. Suddenly the rich and powerful are targets and they lose everything - including their wealth and in most cases, their lives as well. Yes, they are afraid. They should be. They have let their greed run amok. They have taken and taken and taken. They have said that there is never enough for them to acquire - they must always take more. More than their share. And the people from whom that share is taken are to blame for their plight. But deep down they always knew that someday would come the reckoning. That day is here.

Occupy is still small. But it is growing, and the attacks on it by law enforcement at the behest of the city governments is actually helping the movement grow even faster. Each time there is an attack - the watchers are galvanized into action. They see the unfairness of the police with all their weapons against the peaceful protesters and it resonates with them because that is how life feels right now. And the protesters are doing something about it. Finally someone is doing something. The watchers are not alone. So they go join up.

I live in a small town. We have a tiny Occupy group. Our police and mayor have decided to let them be. They are camped on the courthouse lawn. They voluntarily left for Veterans Day so the festivities could take place. When they came back, the encampment was much smaller. But we are also a hard winter place. It is very cold here now. Our Occupy group has a really big tent now - and almost all of them are inside that one tent - much easier to keep warm, and interested people can come in and talk, participate in their GA (General Assembly) and pick up some literature without freezing as well. Who's to say that a raid on this tiny encampment might not help them out? Or not.

Our news media has been on the side of the mayors and law enforcement through the writing of headlines. See if you can spot how the bias operates. "Protesters In Altercation with Police At ..."

When you see that headline it kind of sets up the idea that the protesters started something. The way the headline should have read is "Police Attack Peaceful Protesters At ..." because that is actually what happened.

Kind of changes the perspective, doesn't it?

And finally, there is the discussion about the militarization and terrorist-targeted training of all of our police agencies across the country. But that is a subject for another complete post. For now - the protesters are winning - even though they appear to be losing if you only look at the street battles and who is going to jail.

Interesting note: There have been over 5,000 people jailed in Occupy protests across the country so far. More than were put in jail during all the protests in Iran after their so-called illegal elections, and for which our government imposed sanctions and called for the Iranian government to stop suppressing the protesters rights to criticize their own government and to allow free speech. Very interesting indeed!

When the State Murders Someone...

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the death penalty in the aftermath of a number of incidents in the past few weeks. I am generally opposed to the practice but that feeling has been a general one for the most part. I am opposed because I don't feel that it is a deterrent. I believe it harms the people who have to carry out the executions. And I deeply believe that our justice system is so flawed that we can never be sure that the person we are putting to death is truly and unequivocally guilty beyond all doubt. Recent events have solidified my position and clarified it for me in an almost agonizing way.

In the past few weeks several incidents have come up. The first being the obnoxious cheering by audience members at the announcement by Texas Governor Rick Perry that he had presided over 234 executions during his time as governor. What Perry didn't mention and the press didn't bother to either was that at least one of those executions turns out to be almost certainly of an innocent man - Cameron Todd Willingham. Perry claims he has no problem sleeping at night and doesn't believe that there have been any problems in his state. However the Willingham case was being investigated and Perry fired the chief investigator and ordered the commission that was looking into it to terminate its inquiry. Another board that routinely reviews cases such as this was told that it could review any case in Texas they wanted to - except the Willingham case. So much for that awesome certainty.

Two more executions were scheduled in Texas a couple of weeks ago. One of them was a man who participated in a particularly nasty racist killing, confessed to that killing, refused his appeals and claimed he didn't mind being put to death. Some of the family members of the victim objected to the death penalty in this case.

The other case was stayed by the Supreme Court for some technical issues for a while but then allowed to go forward.

And of course, there is Troy Davis. Troy Davis was no angel. He may have been present when the officer was killed. The so-called ballistic evidence was flawed and proven to be so and testified to be flawed in one of Davis' appeal hearings. Of the nine witnesses who testified against him, seven have recanted, and several of those have pointed the finger at one of the two remaining witnesses as the actual shooter. Many of the witnesses have said they were threatened by the actual shooter, or by the police themselves. No other physical evidence ties Davis to the shooting. Is he guilty? It is a pretty paltry case on which to put someone to death.

My point is this - in the end it seemed like the District Attorney (who said he would have never sought the death penalty if he was trying the case today), the Board of Parole and Pardons (who stated that the witness recantations caused them to have serious doubts about Davis' guilt), the Georgia Supreme Court (who voted 3-2 to uphold his conviction - the dissenters said that the trial was too racially charged to be fair), the US Supreme Court (voted 5-4 not to stay the execution), all seemed more interested in upholding the process rather than interested in upholding justice. And there was the really incredible statement by Justice Scalia that "there is nothing in the Constitution that says we have to set an innocent man free if he has been convicted by a jury of his peers." WTF??? And yes, Scalia was talking about Troy Davis.

Process is the paperwork, the following the procedures, the filing the briefs, the arguments and so on. But doing the things that are "normally" done just for the sake of doing them. Not rocking the boat. And certainly not taking a stand on the actual case because that would be having to admit somewhere, somehow, that someone or a bunch of someones made an awful mistake.

That the guy who really killed that policeman is still walking around out there loose. And he still is - even though Troy Davis is now dead and buried. That all the pressuring the witnesses and lying about those bullet casings and all the rest got someone on death row so they could say they got the guy. Only they didn't. So the family of the slain officer could get closure. Except they won't get that. Killing Troy Davis won't bring back their son/father/husband. Killing the guy who really killed him won't either, unfortunately.

But no one will now ever know the truth. Because Davis is dead. Now everyone will stop looking. The investigation is closed. The real killer got away with it. He's been bragging to people about it.

*************************************************************************************

I read a scholarly paper about crime and punishment a lot of years ago. The real deterrent is the swiftness and the surety of the punishment, not the severity of it. Especially here when the death penalty is so unevenly applied, and because of the appeals process, which is also very uneven, and which takes forever. In the Davis case - 22 years.

People who commit horrible crimes are not thinking to themselves "Gee. I shouldn't do this because I will probably get caught and if I do they will put me to death."

No. They are thinking "Gee. If I do this I probably won't get caught, but if I do I can get a good lawyer and he can probably get me off."

That is why the death penalty is not a deterrent. Only about 60% of murders are solved, and only a very small portion of those are considered death penalty cases. Several states do not currently have the death penalty as an option. That fact has not seemed to affect murder rates on those states.

The cost of incarceration is an argument given by some death penalty proponents as a reason to put people to death. However the idea that killing someone to save money is a reason for doing it is pretty abhorrent on its own. Never mind that it is a false premise. The costs of a capital murder trial plus the appeals and the execution process far exceed the costs of even a lengthy incarceration. Estimates range between about $32,000 to $47,000 per year depending on the state and the facility. The cost of a death penalty case from start to finish (which may include a couple decades of incarceration at the upper end of the price spectrum) ranges from a low of about $1.2 million to a high of nearly $3.5 million. So if saving money is your argument then you should be arguing to abolish the death penalty.

But the argument should be on the moral grounds. If we believe that it is wrong to kill, then it is wrong to kill, period. It is just as wrong for the state - representing all of us - to coldly and with premeditation and much planning and forethought to kill someone - as it was for that individual to do so. After all, as Keith Olbermann stated, "at least the individual has some excuse, as poor as it may have been, for what he or she did. We, that is, the state on our behalf, do not."

When did Rush Limbaugh Become King of the United States?

Something happened while I was asleep. Rush Limbaugh became King of the United States. Grover Norquist apparently is his Chief Financial Officer. How this happened is beyond me - but it is a fact.

Here is the evidence. John Boehner, the former Speaker of the House - now just a puppet who mouths platitudes fed to him by King Limbaugh, had received a request from the former President, Barack Obama, to speak before a joint session of Congress. Mr. Boehner said okay. But then King Limbaugh heard about this and he was outraged. Outraged I tell you. He threw a hissy fit. He screamed and yelled as only King Limbaugh can. So of course Mr. Boehner had to pretend that he didn't really say yes to the pretend President. So Mr. Boehner sent a letter to the pretend President and told him that the House would be too busy doing other things like re-naming post offices and stuff and besides they wouldn't have time to do the security sweep that takes three hours even though they were being given a week's notice. So could the pretend President just come another time? And of course, the pretend President said well, yes, of course. We cannot afford to make King Limbaugh unhappy now, can we?

The Republicans are in charge of the nation's money right now. And almost every one of them has signed a pledge given to them by Grover Norquist. One that says they absolutely under no circumstances will ever ever ever raise a single red cent in taxes. And even if it means destroying the country - they are all determined to do just that. They are on a campaign to balance the budget, pay off all our debt and do it all without raising one cent of revenue. Because Grover Norquist says so.

I thought I was just having a nightmare. Turns out I wasn't. I'm wide awake. I keep pinching myself and wondering what universe I woke up in.

HEEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!!!

Why Are Our Political Leaders Insane?

You know all this deficit and debt talk is a contrived crisis, right? And the ginned up hysteria around raising the debt ceiling? Which is not to say that it should not be raised. It should. Immediately and without any further delay or any further hostage-taking, grandstanding or budget-dealing, back-room meetings, stupid speeches or anything else.

It takes a bill that is all of one sentence. Ten minutes for each house. A minute for a signature by the President. Done.

What has disappeared in all of this is our sense of morality as a country - our humanity, our spirit of sharing and caring.

We have a much smaller but no less real crisis here in my town. Our local homeless shelter, which is located in a far-from-ideal building succeeded in getting a large grant to build a badly needed new building. They spent months looking for a site, finally identified one, and on advice from the mayor, proceeded to do most of the preliminary paperwork and permitting without notifying the residential neighbors.

Well, the neighbors have now found out and the predictable backlash is in full force. And the loudest objections were because they weren't notified at the start of the process. The cowardly mayor then backed down and told the shelter people that maybe they should find another place because this one was "too controversial". Yeah - it's a derelict bar. On a block with two more bars and a casino. On one of the state highways that runs through town. Not very kid friendly. But it is close to the community clinic, a large grocery store, a bus stop, the hospital, and a school.

Oh wait, see that's a problem. This shelter is for women with children but we absolutely cannot allow it to be near a school!!! The principal of the school even wrote a letter to the editor stating that she did not want to allow any of "those" kids in "her" school! Wow! The whole neighborhood is jumping up and down calling people who are defending this project nasty names and screaming about how sacred "their wonderful neighborhood" is. I got news for them. This is the Northside. As in the wrong side of the tracks. You know what that means. There is nothing wonderful about it. There are probably as many or more people living in cars and little tiny travel trailers in backyards in that wonderful neighborhood as would be housed in this new homeless shelter. But "those" people in that brand new shelter are going to drag the home values down. Down from where? Have you noticed that the banks already did that number on you?

This whole thing just makes me sick. I guess it makes other people sick too. The directer of the shelter organization has now quit. So in addition to trying to find another site, they are now also looking for a new director. And "those people" are still needing shelter.

Still sucks to be poor. It didn't used to be a crime but apparently it is fast becoming one.

Why is AARP Selling Out Seniors?

The leadership of AARP has announced that it is okay with benefit cuts to future retirees as part of some kind of budget deal. WHAT?

There are a number of problems with this.

FIRST: There is no structural problem with Social Security. A complete and total fix for any so-called funding problems that are 40-50 years in the future is to either raise or remove the cap on earnings. The original design was for 'capture' of 90+% of total earnings. Right now, capture is sitting at about 83%. Raising the cap to get it back to 90% would solve the very far in the future funding issue. Eliminating it altogether would allow for benefit INCREASES! I know, what a concept. Additionally, it might be worthwhile exploring some kind of 'capture' of FICA tax on unearned income - that is, the kind of income that rich people get from stock market investments and the like. And that is only taxed at 15% for income taxes as well...but that is a discussion for another day.

SECOND: There is absolutely zero, zilch, nada, no impact whatsoever from Social Security on either the debt or the deficit. Social Security is also not an "entitlement" - it is an insurance program that people have paid into, and then get money out of. It is completely self-funded and receives no money from general revenues - and thus has no impact on budgets or anything else.

The Republicans are trying to say that because the Social Security Trust Fund is held in Treasury Bills (T-Bills) that will have to be 'cashed in' or 'paid back' that it is part of the deficit and therefore the program must be cut or destroyed because of that. This is not true.

The majority of the deficit is held by us. You and me. It's in our pension funds, both private and public. It's in our mutual funds that are in our 401(k)s and IRA accounts. It's in our stock portfolios (if we have one) in the form of T-Bills and US Government Bonds. So, according to the same logic - that means that because individual citizens, institutions like unions, state governments and corporations, should all be dismantled or ...what...because they also hold instruments of the deficit? And what about China - they too hold about 20%. We gonna tell them they need to do ....what exactly?

THIRD: If you are going into a negotiation - you don't begin by telling the other side what you are willing to give up before you even start. That is a recipe for not only losing on that issue but having to give up even more since that issue will become the starting point for the negotiation. Witness what happened during the health insurance bill debacle. Single payer came off the table before it started. The public option soon followed. Negotiating for drug prices was given away before it started, along with a host of other very helpful things - all because the Democrats signaled early on that they were willing to give these items up. And so they were gone and nothing was gained in return.


SO......the problem is NOT Social Security. What then is the problem with AARP? Well, as usual it is very simple. Money. AARP has gone from an advocacy group to

-Hawks health, auto, motorcycle, home, mobile home, long-term care, dental and life insurance; besides offering discounts and incentives for travel, eyeglass, hearing aid and many other services;

– Sells annuities, mail order prescription drugs and credit cards and has seven no-load mutual funds;

– Has one of the largest mailing lists in the nation and publishes one of the nation’s most widely circulated and lucrative magazines etc

(You can read more about this at Time to Burn My AARP Card)

I join with Professor Eric Kingson, author of the quoted article, in saying if you must join some senior advocacy group then choose one of these:

Alliance for Retired Americans or
National Committee for the Preservation of Social Security and Medicare

Both of these fine organizations still remain true to their advocacy goals and positions, have large memberships, and will benefit from new ones and will benefit all seniors by having increased power to lobby on behalf of us all.

Water Weather?

We are having what I call water weather here in Montana. What is that, you ask? It's a combination of rain, floods, snow-pack melting, snow falling (yes, I know it's June!) and all of the attendant problems.This year we are really having water weather. Our rivers are higher and more destructive than usual.

For example, the Judith River in southeastern Montana took out a railroad trestle - twisting the railroad rails like wet spaghetti noodles. The biggest problem this caused is sort of obvious - the train cannot run across this trestle any more. Here is the real deal. On one side of this trestle - the east side - is the huge coal mine known as Colstrip. On the other side - in Washington State to the far west - is a big customer - a coal-fired power plant complex. There are now empty coal trains sitting on every single siding between the Judith River and the power plant. I'll not get into a discussion about the wisdom (or not) of burning coal here, but suffice it to say that I don't think the power plant has a large enough stockpile to last until that trestle can be rebuilt. Especially since they have to wait until the water goes down before they can even start - and that is not looking like it will happen any time soon.

Another problem. There is so much water in all the rivers that the lakes behind all of our big dams are rising faster than the water can be released. Today - officials began the process of opening the biggest spillway in the Fort Peck dam on the Missouri River. It is expected to cause flooding in North Dakota and all points downstream once they do. Notifications have been going out for a week so people can get packed and move to higher ground. The dam must be opened - it cannot be allowed to be overtopped - that could result in the destruction of the dam itself and the resulting catastrophe would be far worse.

The Kerr Dam on the Flathead River is a major electricity production point. Not only are all the spillways open at their maximum - but the huge turbines are spinning freely - not generating. This is because the resistance for electricity generation causes the water to be backed up - so they are spinning to let more water through. So...no electricity - and the lake is still rising.

It has been cold and rainy and snowing in the mountains all week. Adding more water to the equation. However the forecast for this weekend is for hot, sunny summer sunshine. You would think we would be happy. Guess again.

The forecast 80-degree heat is expected to melt the huge amounts of snow still in the mountains and bring it all down our already flooding rivers and streams all at once.

And this cold, rainy-snowy followed by hot-sunny stuff is expected to continue for the entire month of June.

Methinks we all better have a canoe and a pair of chest-waders on hand.

But of course this has nothing to do with climate change. Nope. Just coincidence. It's just normal (except it's not).

And Eric Can't-or says we will not be eligible for any assistance unless he can find some cuts somewhere else - like subsidies for not burning coal.

What Can We Learn From The Japanese People?

I was gifted with these ten things by a friend of mine passing along an email.


This was attributed to SKYNEWS. I thought I would pass it along, with some additional commentary (my commentary is in italics).

1. THE CALM
Not a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. Sorrow itself has been elevated.

Just think of this, the country had just been shaken by an unprecedented 9.0 earthquake. That alone would have been enough to "rattle" this country beyond belief. Roads crumbled, buildings toppled, water mains broken, power lines down, and people panicking everywhere. And about an hour later, a 43-foot tall tsunami washed across major portions of the country that had just experienced that major earthquake. Whole small cities of 10,000 people were simply washed into the sea. Google-Earth images show heavily populated areas with hundreds of buildings before - and moments later, the landscape has been washed clean of any evidence of human habitation, not a road, building or anything left. And then after all that, a number of nuclear power plants in the country began experiencing problems - the most serious of which was Fukushima Dai-ichi. The world focused on Dai-ichi and forgot about the rest of the devastation.
But the Japanese people and their government quietly and calmly began immediately to do what was necessary. They set up shelters and began gathering thousands of homeless people into them. They provided food, water and transportation. There was no question of how to do this. They didn't split families up - in fact they tried to keep families together, sending homeless people to relatives instead of stranding them in cities where they knew no one. Quietly and efficiently.

2. THE DIGNITY
Disciplined queues for water and groceries. Not a rough word or a crude gesture. Their patience is admirable and praiseworthy.

Here in this country, most people act this way during a crisis. Unfortunately, there are a lot of others who don't. And equally unfortunately, our media seeks these situations out and highlights them. So it seems even worse than it is. But why are we so rude and mean in the first place? Why do we think that being rude and mean will help us get what we want faster or better or more? Usually it works the opposite way. And we also seem to feel that being dignified is somehow "weak" because it isn't 'aggressive' or 'manly' enough. Actually being dignified takes far more courage in most situations than being a punk. But enough on that.

3. THE ABILITY
The incredible architects, for instance. Buildings swayed but didn't fall.

Many large cities on the West Coast of the US are just as prone to earthquakes as Japan. We have really good architects and engineers who know how to build wonderful buildings too. But a lot of our buildings probably would not withstand a huge earthquake like this - even the newest ones - because our government doesn't require them to be built that way. And because the corporations who build and own them don't want to spend the extra money. They do just the bare minimum to get by. And then hope. And if it does happen, rely on their insurance company to pay for the damages. If people get hurt, too bad. In Japan - the government has a different attitude about these things.

4. THE GRACE (Selflessness)
People bought only what they needed for the present, so everybody could get something.

I witnessed this in a live interview on Kyodo News during the time immediately after they discovered radioactivity in the water in Tokyo. A woman was in a store buying water for her pregnant sister. She bought 4 small bottles of water. The American reporter asked her why she didn't get more and she replied that she wanted to leave some so that others would be able to get some too. They also showed that day - the same day of the announcement that babies and pregnant and nursing mothers should not drink the water, the government had already set up distribution centers and were giving water to people in those categories. Talk about efficiency!

5. THE ORDER
No looting in shops. No honking and no overtaking on the roads. Just understanding.

I have never understood this. Whenever a disaster strikes, or even just when the power goes out for an extended time, a certain group of people just seem to always see it as an opportunity to steal and vandalize things. It is excused as 'venting rage' or something - but often the victims of the theft and vandalism are not the perpetrators of whatever the thieves and vandals are complaining about. After Katrina, I could understand people getting food and water - but the ones stealing TV sets and expensive sound systems?
Taking advantage of others in the midst of a crisis doesn't help your situation much if at all, and in the long run may make everything worse. That store owner whose store was impacted by the disaster already and then lost even more because of looting may decide it isn't worth it to re-open in your neighborhood afterwards. There go the jobs, and the access to whatever he sells. Maybe he would have been able to stay if not for the looting. Why don't we teach people the long-term consequences of our actions - in everything we do?>

6. THE SACRIFICE
Fifty workers stayed back to pump sea water in the N-reactors. How will they ever be repaid?

This is one of those decisions that those individuals probably didn't have to consciously make - they were there, they just started doing what was necessary, one step at a time. At some point or other, they realized they probably weren't going to get out without getting a possibly lethal dose of radiation, but also realized that if they didn't stay - hundreds or thousands of people faced that same fate. And so they just kept on - for the sake of their families who probably lived within the mandatory evacuation zone, and for everyone else. I hope for their sake that the Japanese government gives them something to recognize that they are all heroes in the truest sense of that word. And I am sure that will happen.
Unlike here where our lovely Congress has delayed and delayed even paying for the vitally needed healthcare for the people who spent weeks and months digging in the wreckage of the WTC pile - after having been lied to by Bush Administration officials about the air quality - and are now sick and dying from breathing toxic chemicals in the air. And even now - those workers are being forced to be run through the terrorist watch list database before they can access the funds for this healthcare as a result of a provision that was attached to the recently passed legislation authorizing those funds. Unbelievable. Instead of medals they get insults on top of death sentences.

7. THE TENDERNESS
Restaurants cut prices. An unguarded ATM is left alone. The strong cared for the weak.

The Japanese people, through their government/business partnership structures and the way their corporate/labor structures work are used to working as teams. They understand that they are 'all in it together'. You know - socialism of the highest order. They get that for all of them to survive three huge disasters all at the same time that everyone must work together to put the pieces back together.
Japan seems to understand in a way that the US does not, the virtue of long-range planning and preparedness. Like the water for babies. They made an announcement and the water was there. Immediately. Not in a week. Right then. They ordered a mandatory evacuation zone around Dai-ichi. And even though the roads had been washed away and the shelters were already full of people left homeless by the earthquake and the tsunami, they got the people out of there. Right away. Not weeks later. Obviously, their version of FEMA actually has plans. Plans that take into account many variables. Plans that all the appropriate people know about and that are not hidden away in the drawers of some private consultant somewhere. Plans that can be and are implemented on a moments notice.

8. THE TRAINING
The old and the children, everyone knew exactly what to do. And they did just that.

It's one thing to have plans. But everyone has to know just what those plans are, and how they fit into those plans. In Northern California where I lived for over 25 years, they have NEST (Neighborhood Emergency Support Teams). In case of a disaster - probably an earthquake - you might be inaccessible because of bridges out, landslides, and so on. So neighborhoods were encouraged to form NESTs to identify resources that everyone could depend on for up to two weeks in that event. In my neighborhood, our house was a water source since we had an active deep water well and a hand pump available if the water main broke and water was unavailable. That's the kind of resource that becomes pretty important.
After Katrina, one of the major problems was the evacuation plan. There were apparently only five copies of the $3.2 million plan ever made. During the Congressional hearings afterwards, not one single person could provide a copy of it to the investigating committee. Not even the private consulting firm who supposedly produced it. As far as I am concerned - if no one has the plan - it doesn't exist. You cannot implement a plan if you don't know about it, if you haven't disseminated it to all affected parties, if you haven't practiced it. You cannot criticize anyone for not evacuating according to some plan they never heard of.
But this failure of long-term planning is pretty endemic throughout this country. We are always in the 'no one could have known' frame of mind. Even though time and again the best minds among us have been crying in the wilderness for years about that very thing.>

9. THE MEDIA
They showed magnificent restraint in the bulletins. No silly reporters.
Only calm reportage. Most of all NO POLITICIANS TRYING TO GET CHEAP MILEAGE.

I would add to this that there has been no 'ass-covering' by the government towards TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant). TEPCO was ordered last week to begin disbursing checks to the people who lived within the mandatory evacuation zones. They were told how much to pay and that the checks needed to be paid immediately and given a list.They were also told that this is just a preliminary payment and that other payments will follow. The checks went out.
Contrast this to the BP $20 billion fund to reimburse all the people who lost their livelihoods after the Gulf disaster. A year and a half after that began, people are still not getting paid and still getting hassled for more papers please and the lawyers are getting rich and the fisher people and business people of the Gulf coast are losing everything they own to bankruptcy. Meanwhile BP is writing off the disaster as a loss on their taxes and giving big fat bonus checks to all their executives.

10. THE CONSCIENCE
When the power went off in a store, people put things back on the shelves and left quietly.

The manager of the Dai-ichi Power Plant broke down sobbing at the first news conference when he announced to the world that his plant was releasing high levels of radioactivity and that the plant was in danger of meltdown at at least three of the reactors. His sobbing was not the idiotic grandstanding stuff of John Boehner, but the kind of a person who realizes that a nuclear power plant that he is personally responsible for may just wind up killing a lot of people. At every appearance he has been at since he begins and ends with multiple apologies, and that very deep bow. (The deeper the bow, the more humiliating). He has also been very sick himself - an aide reported that he was so sick that he had a doctor come in and hook him up to an IV, but that he 'hadn't fallen down on the floor' so he continued to work although he was staying in a side room. Yeah - the conscience. Unlike some others - you know who - the list is endlessly long.....>

With their country in the midst of a colossal disaster - The Japanese citizens can teach plenty of lessons to the world.

These examples are particularly sharp for me today because I just read an article about Tim Pawlenty's education commission where they decided that teaching kindergartners to share was bad because it has "socialistic tendencies". What???

I'm sorry but socialism is not a bad thing. In fact, all you right-wingers out there - if it wasn't for socialism you would not even be alive. Sharing is what your parents did for you from the moment of your birth. They shared their food, their shelter, their resources, so you could live. Everything you have achieved in your life is because of socialism. The house you live in, the roads you drive on, the car you drive in, the schools you attended whether public or private, the church you go to (or not), the food you eat, the water you drink, the clean air you breathe, the clothes on your back, the companies you have worked for, even the government you love to hate - all of it and every bit of it is socialist. We are all socialists you and I. And the more socialist we are - the better off we all are.

The Japanese people, through the three gigantic, horrific disasters they are going through right now, are showing us just how true this is.